Feeling stuck in your Christian life? Repeatedly asking for forgiveness only to keep falling into the same sins? Are the same wounds messing with you over and over? Praying for deliverance that only seems to last for a moment? Perhaps you’re focusing on the wrong category. It’s healing, repentance, and deliverance that you need – all of them.

You can’t repent your way out of woundedness. You can’t heal your way out of sin. And you can’t heal or repent your way out of spiritual bondage and oppression. These categories connect with each other, but each deserves focused attention. Jesus came preaching, teaching, healing, and delivering (Matthew 4:23, Acts 10:38). He sent His disciples out to do the same (Matthew 10:7-8).

When Jesus was here physically, earth got a taste of what it’s like when things are as God desires them to be. Jesus came bringing a whole gospel, undoing everything evil has done in our bodies, minds, souls, hearts. As He does His work in us now, we become more and more integrated. The parts of us become less and less separate. Jesus speaks “peace be still” to all our internal wars.

It’s only in this way that we become capable of being intimate within ourselves (integrated, free, whole), of experiencing true intimacy with a few others, and of deepest and eternal intimacy with God Himself.

Doesn’t that sound amazing? Wouldn’t you love to be that free and whole?

Let’s talk about the elements of healing, repentance, and deliverance in this process.

Healing

Here on earth Jesus healed the blind, the lame, lepers, and all “who had need of healing” (Luke 9:11). The witness of followers of Jesus for over 2000 years gives evidence that He still does the same. An injury, a sickness, a birth defect – there are many testimonies of miraculous healings.

And, there are many followers of Jesus who have not experienced such dramatic moments even though they pray for such. Without pretending to have all the answers, my understanding of healing has broadened a great deal. Evil has not only unleashed specific diseases on the earth that have ravaged humankind for millennia; it has also marred and corrupted our very physical nature, our DNA, and our material environment. The very physical creation, including our bodies, is in the process of being restored because of Jesus (Romans 8:19-22).

And there are the wounds in the soul, often much more tenacious and limiting. Shame, fear, limiting beliefs, lenses on the world that become cracked and foggy. These wounds become deeply embedded in both the physical neurological and the immaterial psychological patterns in our being. If anything, Jesus is even more interested in bringing wholeness to those parts of us.

Healing is something we embrace, seek, accept, and actively choose to take into our being. We can’t manufacture healing ourselves, but we can place ourselves in the path where it comes and open ourselves to the process. We can choose the new lifestyle that living in healing requires.

Perhaps this will be something we experience in eternity for a very long time. Why else would there be leaves on the tree of life that are for the purpose of healing? (Revelation 22:2).

Repentance

Healing is vital. And so is repentance. We have all, every single one of us, been embroiled in sin and rebellion against God – in part through simply being born in this sinful world to sinful human beings, and in part through our own choices. Excuses don’t help. We have failed. And in our natural state we are incapable of living and doing right or of being in God’s presence.

Repentance simply means turning in a new direction. It’s not an emotion; it’s an action. There may be sorrow; you may feel truly bad about what you’ve done and about your sinful nature. But that feeling is not repentance; repentance is the turning, the heading in a new direction. (See 2 Corinthians 7:10-11).

Your sin may have, and often does, come out of your wounds. This is not about blame; it’s about the process of becoming who God originally created you to be. I may, for example, have grown up in a violent angry household. That explains why I may have become an angry person who hurts others, but it does not make that any less sinful. Healing means I am no longer held hostage by the violence I experienced growing up. But repentance means I turn in a new direction now.

Jesus is ready with extravagant forgiveness whenever you turn. Forgiveness is amazing! And it’s not enough. As with a baby learning to walk, the next step is developing a new lifestyle, getting up when you fall down, continuing to embrace healing where needed, and continuing to repent (turn) whenever you fall down again.

Repentance aligns you with what Jesus is doing. And His presence makes a new direction possible and provides the power to live it out. It’s rarely just one moment; it becomes a way of life.

Deliverance

The early Christians thought of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection firstly and most predominantly in terms of victory over the kingdom of darkness. Jesus is Lord! was their rallying cry. He had won over every principality and power, seen and unseen. Spiritual warfare was not just a nice-to-have for the early followers of Jesus; spiritual warfare was the point.

This dimension of the Christian life has sometimes been dismissed and sometimes been made weird and kooky. But it’s neither unimportant, nor is it the whole thing. Not everything is spiritual warfare. But to go through life without embracing this reality leaves us defeated and powerless.

We need deliverance! Peter summarized Jesus’ life as undoing everything the devil had done (Acts 10:38). We live in a world where Jesus has won, and where the kingdom of darkness has not yet been eliminated. Warfare will be a reality until the kingdom of God comes in completeness at Jesus’ return.

Experiencing deliverance doesn’t have to be dramatic or complicated; it’s just part of life for the follower of Jesus. If Jesus has your heart, it’s simply about standing firm. You come to understand the lies from Satan that you’ve bought into, renounce them, and learn to take your thoughts captive in obeying Christ. You apply the blood of Jesus to your life, embracing the victory He accomplished through His cross and resurrection.

And your very self, your life as an overcoming follower of Jesus, becomes proof that God is who He said He is, and that Jesus has won.

How do You Know?

So which is it that you need – healing, repentance, or deliverance?

If it’s obvious, deal with that. But why not ask Jesus? Your ongoing life with God will involve all of these dimensions at various times, sometimes in combination.

I’m so grateful we serve a Savior who has more than enough for whatever we need – healing, forgiveness, freedom, integration – in short, life! I wish that life for you today.

Your Turn: Which do you feel most in need of right now – healing, repentance, or deliverance? What are you going to talk to Jesus about?   Leave a comment below.

Want more? This week’s podcast is a fascinating conversation with Drs. Brad Strawn and Earl Bland about the integrated pathway to wholeness. Listen or watch.

Tweetables: why not share this post?

• You can’t repent your way out of woundedness. You can’t heal your way out of sin. And you can’t heal or repent your way out of spiritual bondage and oppression. You need healing, repentance, AND deliverance – all of the above.   Tweet that.

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